


Home Is Where I'm With You

by thiswildheart



Series: Where you go, I go too [4]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Mentioned Yoda (Star Wars), Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:02:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29765580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thiswildheart/pseuds/thiswildheart
Summary: It's surprisingly easy, the way Din and Luke grow closer. Life at the temple goes on peacefully, until an accident makes Din lose confidence about his place in Grogu's life. It takes several revelations about Yoda and Luke's unwavering refusal to let Din do something he'll regret to show him where he belongs.(They also hold hands, but Luke's totally calm about that. Really.)
Relationships: Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda, Din Djarin/Luke Skywalker
Series: Where you go, I go too [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2173170
Comments: 25
Kudos: 170





	Home Is Where I'm With You

**Author's Note:**

> Someone should probably take my keyboard away at this point. I'm going to slow down about posting these now, but I had to get through the ones that wouldn't get out of my head any other way.
> 
> We're settling into the beginnings of romance now. Via a mild amount of panic, because Din Djarin is not used to having nice things (even though he deserves absolutely all of them). (Also I wrote this because I wanted to use one line that I thought was funny and it ended up being 5k words of angst and affection instead, how do these things happen.)
> 
> Thank you for reading and for each kudos and comment, I already love being part of this fandom ♥

Something changes between them after Tatooine.

It's not like they start sharing their deepest secrets the minute they leave the palace. But when they reach Mos Eisley and Peli starts exaggeratedly rhapsodising about her returned speeders, Din sighs and concedes to filling Luke in on the ambush that had led to the original speeder getting destroyed and himself hiking back through the desert. It's an impressive enough tale - Luke knows the heat of the twin suns well enough, and he doesn't walk around in full armour - even before Peli mentions the dragon meat they'd eaten afterwards, and Luke realises this is the epilogue to the story Grogu showed him about Din exploding his way out of a krayt dragon.

It's heroic, brave, and _absolutely insane_. Luke is genuinely impressed. Din Djarin is fast becoming the most fascinating person he's ever met.

And somehow it's like the ice has broken between them, albeit a couple of months late. Over the fortnight they spend tracking down and questioning bounty hunters, they begin to unfold parts of their lives to each other. Luke starts by bringing up his childhood on Tatooine, tentatively at first because he isn't sure if Din particularly wants to hear it. But Din devotes his attention to Luke, clearly listening and asking curious questions, while Grogu putters around between their laps and has to be occasionally nudged away from the controls. The sense that Din genuinely cares about what he's saying draws more out of Luke, and the words of mourning offered softly in the Mandalorian tongue when he speaks of his aunt and uncle feel like a gift. His account of his first visit to Mos Eisley and Obi-Wan's judgement on the place makes Din laugh, and that - that's a sound Luke wants to hear again. It's unexpected, infectious and immediately addictive.

Din responds with his own stories. They're a little sparsely told, and he doesn't speak about his childhood; Luke doesn't pry. He talks instead about bounties he's taken, the places he's been, and above all about Grogu. By the time they've identified the hideout of the ex-imperial warlord looking to capture the child to curry favour with the Empire, Luke knows much of the story - knows the guilt Din still carries for how it began, and how desperately hard he's fought to keep Grogu safe ever since. That fight doesn't surprise Luke at all. The attachment between Din and Grogu remains one of the brightest things he's ever seen, and one of the most beautiful.

And it isn't only these hours of conversation that pull them closer. Tracking down and questioning the bounty hunters doesn't even require them to fight, not really; it would, apparently, take someone of more courage than these hunters to withstand the mere sight of a Mandalorian standing, blaster drawn, beside a Jedi with a lightsaber humming in his hand. Luke doesn't even have to resort to trying mind tricks before they offer their secrets in exchange for escape, which he's glad of; he's not sure how Din would feel about that particular skill.

His presence isn't the only help Luke can offer Din, though. When they find the warlord's base, hidden away on a secluded planet and well-defended, there is a weariness in the way Din begins to arm himself. Luke stills him with a touch on his shoulder, fingers light against the mudhorn signet.

"Wait," he says, "I've got a better idea."

Din shakes his head. "I have to stop him before he sends anyone else after the kid."

"I know. But I can get us help."

And that's when he tells Din the full story of who his sister is.

The New Republic has ships in the atmosphere within a day, and the base surrenders less than an hour later in the face of overwhelming opposition, not a life lost on either side. Luke privately suspects this is why the warlord wasn't popular in the Empire, but it's a brilliant success for the New Republic.

Din was wary about the presence of the New Republic and Luke had to concede to moving the ship well out of the way and not passing on Din's name before he'd agree to have Luke call them. It felt a bit ridiculous to Luke, because whatever past dealings he's had it's not like Luke wouldn't be able to keep him out of trouble simply by vouching for him, and Leia is going to love the guy anyway. But once the news reaches them that the warlord's under arrest and has taken a deal securing him a better prison facility in exchange for cancelling the bounty, Din seems almost in a state of shock.

"It can't be that easy," he says, just staring at the kid as he naps in the hammock, occasionally snuffling in his sleep. Din still seems tense, like a bounty hunter might crash into their ship at any moment.

"I'm not sure Leia would call it easy," Luke says with a grin. "She's been bending my ear about how many squadron commanders she had to yell out of bed to get them here this fast."

When Din doesn't reply immediately, though, Luke sobers and waits. There's a difference between Din refusing to answer and him needing time to formulate his thoughts, and Luke knows how to tell the silences apart now.

"I'm not used to this." The words come soft and hesitant, a vulnerability Luke has not heard in him since that day on the imperial cruiser. "I always have to fight, and I'm usually... Sometimes there's been people who can step in to help save the kid but otherwise it's always just been me."

And Luke kind of gets it, because so much of his journey has had to be undertaken apart from others; he's had to walk a different path and find his own way. But he's also had precious constants - Leia, Han, Chewie, Artoo and Threepio. He's had to leave them, far more often than he'd like, but they have always, always been there, just a call or a flight away, or even showing up when he leasts expects and most needs them.

Without his family to lean on, he can't quite think how lonely he would have been.

He reaches out to Din again, always telegraphing his movements enough that Din could stop him easily if he chose. But he doesn't, and Luke grips Din's arm, fingers curling around the space above his vambraces where only fabric covers his skin.

"You're not alone now, my friend," he says, and it is both statement and promise. "We'll protect him together."

That impenetrable helmet is fixed upon him for a long time, Din's arm motionless in Luke's grip, and then Din nods. "Let's get the kid home."

 _Home_. Most likely he means the temple is Grogu's home, of course, but there is something in the weight of the word that makes Luke hope maybe, one day, it will be more.

* * *

They fall back into their usual routine at the temple, but it is not quite the same as before. They talk far more now, about matters both idle and deep; one encounter will be Din's grievances about some fault in his ship or Luke bemoaning what new creature Grogu has tried to eat that day, and the next will be Din quietly recounting what he knows of the darksaber, or Luke explaining the workings of the Force. Din begins to linger in the room while Luke and Grogu eat so that they can talk over dinner, leaving only briefly to eat his own food before they all gather together again.

Some days Luke finds himself thinking this might be the most comfortable he's ever felt in his life.

Even Din seems to be finding a level of comfort, expressed - as is often his way - with actions rather than words. It's been perhaps three, getting on for four months since Din first arrived at the temple when he emerges one day not wearing the armour that usually protects his legs.

Din never says a word about it, so Luke doesn't comment. But he _knows_ , all the same, how much this says. It speaks of a growing trust so huge it leaves Luke breathless - trust in this place, in its security, in _Luke_. Din doesn't surrender part of his armour every day, but each time a leg or arm goes without a piece of beskar, Luke feels it like a burst of light in his chest.

It's not perfect, though. For all the good days, there are those when Din seems uneasy, restless. Luke doesn't know what's going on with him, exactly, but he's seen the same kind of thing before. He's felt it himself, come to that, especially in those early months after the war - days when he couldn't release his emotions into the Force regardless of how long he meditated, when the only way to bleed out the tension was to train relentlessly or ride a speeder off alone somewhere. Din tends to disappear into the woods for hours on those days, or keep to his room in the evenings.

So on one warm sunny day, Luke isn't entirely surprised when the swearing starts. Din's been in a weird mood all day, laying out a bunch of kit and parts from his ship across one of the training rooms and cleaning them with a level of aggression they can't possibly have warranted, especially since Luke's seen him clean all his equipment at least ten times since almost any of it was last used.

The unsettled mood has spread to Grogu, who couldn't even finish meditation this morning let alone progress to any lessons, so Luke let him follow his instincts back to Din and left the pair of them to it when he saw Din shuffle aside enough to let Grogu poke around. The kid's sure to return to Luke if Din leaves too long before stopping for lunch.

Regardless of his mood, Din will want Grogu there. Beyond that, it doesn't feel like the right time to press company on him, so Luke spends the morning outside. He's been contemplating the idea of building some kind of miniature training course for Grogu to improve his precision when levitating objects, and it's a good opportunity to work out whether he's got any hope of building it without asking for Din's help.

He's just about got himself sweaty, aching and concluding that he really has no hope at all in that mission when there's a crash, and then the swearing, and he drops his tools on the ground. He runs into the comparative cool of the temple, practically bouncing off the walls as he sprints for the training room. Din's voice sounded more panicked and annoyed than injured, but his heart's hammering anyway as he bursts through the doors.

Din is just starting to pick himself up from what is clearly a defensive position, his entire body braced as a shield just above the ground. Underneath his armoured chest, large green ears emerge as Din pushes himself up onto his knees, patting the kid down with a mix of care and alarm. Grogu is fine, Luke can already tell - the child is trying to push that message at both adults, but only Luke is tuned in to hear it. It takes a few more seconds for Din to reassure himself enough to release Grogu, and only then does he acknowledge Luke.

"What happened?" Luke asks cautiously, wary of the tension still in every line of Din's body.

"I was checking the jetpack over," Din says, and his voice is _wrong_. It's emotionless in a way Din never is, much though he tries to feign it. It's like he's tipped right over into a reaction so strong he's locked it down rather than feel it. "The kid wanted to help, he was watching from my lap, but it went off." His head jerks towards the wall, where the source of the crash was evidently the jetpack colliding hard with the stone; it's beskar, so there's more damage to the wall than the tech, but Din must have turned it off quickly from his vambrace because it didn't keep travelling.

Grogu, however, has more to add to the story. He conveys it with a flash of guilt-coated memory to Luke, the probing of a curious claw at the controls, trying to mimic what his dad always does.

Luke resists the urge to groan. "It was an accident, Din."

"He could have been hurt."

"But he's not, he's fine. You protected him."

Din gets to his feet. Luke has often thought privately that Din's presence in the Force is like water, never tranquil but often, at the temple, at least a quietly flowing river. Now it's the pressure of floodwater against a dam.

"I put him in danger. I should never have let him near the jetpack at all, let alone the controls."

The eerily rigid tone is beginning to crack, but there's a note of panic rising in its place that is absolutely not more of a reassurance. Grogu is beginning to make uncertain noises, looking between the two of them with wide eyes.

Din picks the kid up, but he doesn't settle him into the comfortable, familiar position in the crook of his arm that both father and son favour. There's a distance in the way he holds him, and Luke follows closely with an uneasy feeling in his gut as Din heads out of the training room, not putting Grogu down until they reach the more cosy room with its fireplace, soft chairs and small dining table that they've adopted as their main living space. There he sets Grogu down on a cushion, staring down at him.

"I can't stay here."

Luke just looks at him blankly for a moment, then narrows his eyes. "Run that by me again?"

"I should never have stayed. This was all a mistake. This isn't the kind of person I am."

"Din, it was an accident. A friend of mine, Shara, her kid locked himself inside her X-Wing when he was three and they couldn't get him out for hours. She and Kes were worried sick; he had the time of his life. These things happen. Kids are trouble, but they're also resilient."

The reassurance doesn't seem to be working. Din is backing away, even as Grogu cocks his head to one side and looks up, babbling eagerly. Clearly aware something is wrong with his father, he grabs his beloved stuffed frog and offers it up to Din, regardless of its perpetually soggy feet.

Din doesn't take it. He's moving with troubling precision, grabbing the few effects of his that had finally - _finally_ \- begun to migrate out of his room and into the living spaces of his temple, and _oh_ Luke is not having this. Not when they'd finally made progress, even if it was only manifested in his weapon cleaning kit, a spare shirt drying by the fire, a data pad on the table and a book Luke had given him beside an armchair. If the situation was less dire it might have tugged on something in his chest to see how carefully Din picks up the book, even as he roughly grabs everything else - but no. There's no time for that.

As Din takes off down the corridor, Luke follows.

"You can't be serious," he snaps from the doorway of Din's room, watching him dump everything haphazardly back into the messy box he'd hauled off the ship months ago. "What, you're just going to up and leave us because you're panicking?"

"I'm not panicking!" Din says, voice pitched slightly too unevenly to support his point. "I'm thinking more clearly than I have this whole time. I'm dangerous, my life - it's dangerous, I shouldn't - I can't-"

He breaks off, like he's choking back far more words, and jams the lid roughly onto the box before turning to the weapons and armour laid out on the table.

And Luke realises that this has been building for a while, and it's about a lot more than the kid trying to play with his jetpack.

Din is strapping his armour onto his legs. There's an automatic familiarity to how he puts it on, with no indication of the significance of the fact that he hadn't been wearing it. Seeing the evidence that he was beginning to feel safe disappear feels like someone has put Luke's heart in a vice.

"You don't think you deserve this, do you?" Luke says frankly. "You don't think you're the kind of person who gets to have this kind of life? I get it, Din. I do. The things I saw in the war, the things I did-"

"That's not what this is about."

"Isn't it? There were nights I thought I should just run to the ends of the galaxy. Who was I to think I could be a Jedi, train children to be Jedi, given who I was, what I'd done, how close I'd come to failing? But it's not about me, it never has been. What I can do, no one else can, so I've got to do it."

"There's nothing I can do that no one else can."

"Din, you're his father. No one else is."

"He's got you."

It's like banging his head against the temple walls, only this is more painful. "You know that's not the same."

"It doesn't matter."

"If you wanted to go because there's something you need to do, I wouldn't stop you. But you are his _father_ , Din, and if you abandon him you'll regret it for the rest of your life."

Luke knows that more than most. It's not that simple, of course, because Vader didn't regret, really, but what remained of Anakin did; he saw it in that one moment he got to look into his father's eyes. He doesn't voice the thought, because this isn't about him, but he'll be damned if he lets that same haunted look ever settle into Din's face.

He cares about Din far too much - perhaps much more than he should - to let that happen.

"I should be out there, chasing bounties, that's who I am, not this."

"You're being ridiculous! That's not running to anything, that's running away."

"I'm not a coward."

"Then stay and figure this out!"

This Mandalorian is a stubborn laserbrain, though. "My covert might still be out there. I need to find them. This is the Way."

" _The Way, this is_ , you mean," Luke snaps back. Until now he's never felt so much as a flash of irritation towards Din's references to his Creed, even if he has, very privately, mourned the things Din seems sometimes to long for that are denied to him. But Din has never used it like this before - has never used it as an excuse, something to hide behind, and Luke can't ignore that.

Din stills. There's something deadly in it, like the coiling up of a predator before it strikes; he swivels round slowly on the balls of his feet. "What," he says flatly. His hands are curled into fists at his sides.

Luke holds his ground, unaffected. "That's what we've got coming when the kid grows up, if he's anything like Yoda," he says furiously. "When he learns to talk and decides he wants to be a Mandalorian as much as a Jedi. Who's going to teach him that, I'd like to know, if you've flown off into the stars?"

He expects Din to shoot back with another of his increasingly ridiculous arguments, can practically hear the breath of air Din takes to do just that, but it doesn't come. Instead, the helmet tilts to one side slightly and the tension in his body changes to something else.

"I've heard that name before. He's - he's like the kid, somehow?"

The question takes the wind out of Luke's sails somewhat. It's enough of an emotional turnabout that it takes him a minute to catch up. "My old Master," he says eventually, frowning. "He was the same species as Grogu, he always spoke like that, kind of backwards. I must have told you?"

When Din replies, his voice sounds raw. "You _know_ him? Someone like Grogu?"

Oh. Oh, _no_. Has he really never told him? The desperation in Din's voice is answer enough, but Luke can't quite process the fact that he skipped this fairly major detail. It had never really occurred to him, he supposed, that of course Din didn't know anything about Grogu's species. It wasn't like Luke had ever seen another outside of Grogu and Yoda, and Din might be more travelled but there was no reason to think he knew any more.

The urgency has completely dropped out of Din's body. Where there was panic and the faint edge of fear about him, the primary sense Luke is getting in the Force is now the feeling that Din is utterly adrift, and Luke is offering him a raft.

He swallows past a suddenly blocked feeling in his throat. "We should sit," he manages, gesturing. He sinks into the wicker chair, himself, and for a moment he's not sure Din will follow suit. But then the door creaks, and a familiar little face peeks through. Grogu's ears are lowered, a sure sign of distress, and he looks at Din with plaintive eyes.

Din makes a strangled sort of grunt and then he's picking the kid up, sinking down onto the bed with the boy cradled in his arms. Grogu still looks worried, but he settles comfortably against his dad's armour.

"I'm sorry, Din, I should have told you. I was trained by Master Yoda on a planet called Dagobah, years ago now. In the middle of the war. He lived in a little house by a swamp."

Din leans towards him. "Do you know where he was from? His planet? His species?"

Luke has regretted not asking Yoda about himself before, but never so acutely as now. "I wish I did. It never occurred to me to wonder, back then - he was just my teacher. And he was so old it was like he'd just always existed, like he'd sprung fully formed into the world like he was."

He can't see Din's eyes, of course, but he could swear he can feel the man studying him. There's a hesitance in the way he replies, and it's clear he's noticed the wistfulness in Luke's voice.

"Is he..."

"He's dead, now."

"I'm sorry. He must have meant a lot to you."

Luke nods. Even for all the peace he is afforded by the Force, there are sorrows that never quite heal. He has too many of them. "Yes. I wish I'd known it sooner."

"What was he like?"

Now he can't help but smile, despite it all. "Grumpy," he says, and the thought nearly has him laughing. "He was so irritable. Keen on hitting me with a stick, totally unimpressed with my lack of patience. Wise - brilliantly, impossibly wise. He knew so much, and I don't know that I'd agree with all of it even now but I wish I'd listened harder anyway. He spoke in riddles, all the time, and I don't just mean the way he said everything backwards. You should know, I've got no idea if that was just him or if it's common to his species."

Din lets out a huff that's almost a laugh, and even though it's a tiny little sound it makes Luke feel more relaxed than he has since this whole rotten day started. It's like they're edging back towards normal. "That's going to be a problem, isn't it?" He's talking more to Grogu than Luke, and the kid just gives him a smile - Luke would bet good money it's more because he's got his father's attention than a response to what he said.

"There's more you should know, Din," he says, a little reluctant to break the moment but it has to be said. "When I say Yoda was old..."

"Grogu's going to outlive us by a lot, isn't he?" Din's no fool. With a fifty year old toddler for a son, he's clearly considered the numbers before.

"Yoda said he was nine hundred, before he died. I don't know if that was average for his people."

"Nine... hundred." It's hard to tell if that's wonder or dread in his voice.

Din looks down at Grogu, who - apparently confident that the earlier crisis has been fully averted - is now munching on a biscuit he's pulled from somewhere in his robes. Apparently they're going to have to rethink how they've been childproofing the kitchen, though Luke is still at a loss to know how. None of his training or the extensive research he's done since covered the topic of how to handle the care and feeding of a kleptomaniac baby who may be more powerful in the Force than his teacher.

See, this kind of thing is why Din _can't leave_. He has much more success than Luke with getting the kid to listen to him at least some of the time. Though Grogu has chosen his moment well, for once, because Din quite clearly could not care less about the snack right now.

"Will he even be grown by the time I die?"

The question is almost emotionless, or it would be to someone who didn't know him well. But Luke's learned a lot, these last months, and he hears the strain in Din's voice.

"I don't know," he answers gently. "Yoda said he was training padawans since he was a hundred, but he might've been exaggerating."

"He's going to lose so many people," Din says. His voice is faint, emanating something like grief, and it makes Luke think of that lonely swamp, that lonely little house.

But all the same, that wasn't the whole story.

"He's going to _help_ so many people, Din. It won't be easy for him, but he will do such incredible things. That's who he is, I can already feel it. I know you've seen it too. He's strong. He'll get through the hard times, and enjoy the good - he already does that. He's already faced terrible evil and he can still find happiness in so many things. He's going to be alright."

Din leans back against the wall, shifting Grogu with careful hands so that he's leaning against Din's stomach. Biscuit now demolished, Grogu settles in to tapping his hands against the beskar, tiny claws making bright little noises with each touch. Din settles one hand securely against his back, thumb rubbing gently against his robes.

"We've got to give him everything we can, haven't we?" Din says eventually, without looking up. "We need to teach him everything we can to keep himself safe, and - and we need to make sure he remembers he's loved, all his life."

Luke draws his chair closer to the bed until his knees are only inches from Din's. Once again, he reaches out slowly, but Din makes no move to stop him. Luke settles his fingers around Din's free hand in a light grip. The leather of Din's glove is coarse and warm, and he feels Din's fingers twitch.

"He knows, Din," Luke says, looking into the visor. He can see nothing but his own face reflected back, but he senses that he's meeting Din's eyes. "I can feel it in him, all the time. He knows."

The hand under his twists. For a moment Luke thinks Din's pulling away, that he's overstepped horribly, and he begins to retreat - but then Din's gloved palm is in his and he's twisting their fingers together, holding tight. For such a simple thing it feels oddly like Luke is a ship that's just been struck by a meteor, spinning helplessly out into space.

"I'm not leaving," Din says, hoarse and slightly breathless. "I shouldn't have said... I'm sorry."

"You don't need to apologise," Luke says, and it's a wonder he can get the words out when his heart seems to be in his throat.

"I don't know what I'm doing," Din says in a rush, and for a second Luke thinks it's about their hands, but, "I never have. I just took him because there wasn't any other choice and we've been running ever since, and I don't know if I can stop. There's - there's no way I'm going to get to keep any of this."

"Of course there was a choice, Din, you just made the right one." Luke smiles at him. "You're a better person than you think you are. I know it, and so does he."

Luke touches the top of Grogu's head with his free hand, mechanical fingers brushing against the short fuzzy hair there. Din's hand clenches in his a little tighter.

"I'm not leaving," Din says again, and there's a resolution in his voice that finally quashes Luke's unease from before. "As long as I'm wanted here, I'll stay."

As long as he's wanted? Grogu alone wants Din to stay forever, and Luke -

Well.

Luke has his own thoughts on that subject, certainly.

When he first found the temple and set out on the long task of preparing it to be a school, he could never have imagined someone like Din living there with him. Now he can't imagine the place without him, how much emptier it would all feel. He's not sure he knows what that means, yet, but he knows he wants the chance to find out.

"You'd better unpack again, then," Luke says firmly. "It's your turn to cook."

Din laughs. The sound brings to mind the feeling Luke gets when he's at the controls of his X-Wing, soaring as fast as he can through the deep dark of spiralling galaxies.

"Wouldn't want to miss that," Din says, and stands up, tucking Grogu onto one hip so that he can lever the lid of the storage box open again.

Luke misses the feeling of their tangled fingers immediately, but as if his brain is only then able to fully function, he does remember another thing to add.

"Oh! Of course, I'll ask Yoda all our questions next time I see him. To be honest, though, he's only shown up a few times since he died, and he still talks in riddles."

There's nothing threatening in the way Din turns round this time, partly because of the baby and the handful of clothes, but also because his body language is a lot more concerned than angry. "Are you feeling alright?"

Luke frowns at the non-sequitur, then understanding dawns. "Ah, we've not got to Force ghosts yet in Grogu's lesson plan yet, have we? No problem, we've got plenty of time. Now that he knows we want to talk to him, it'll probably be a decade before Yoda shows up."

Din looks from Luke to Grogu and back again several times before he heaves a sigh, and settles his gaze on the kid. "I don't care if you talk back to front, Grogu, but please try to grow up less weird than your teacher."

Grogu babbles something happy and incomprehensible, and Luke beams. "Not a chance, my friend," he says cheerfully, and heads off to find a better place to hide the biscuits.


End file.
